Dinner Strategy

Lately, with our tighten-the-belt don't-spend-any-money program we have going on while we wait for our property, I realized that getting dinner on the table every night, without fail, and NOT wasting food, is high priority. Now, I realize it SHOULD be EVERY day, but with 3 little ones and a sometimes-busy lifestyle, that didn't always happen. So my strategy lately has been - I HAVE to make dinner a priority, and get it done first thing in the day - enter the crockpot! Now I've definitely used the crockpot a lot, but not every night like I have lately. With little ones, sometimes things would happen to make dinner difficult - an unexpected errand (for us or a friend), cranky children, cranky mom (LOL!), something didn't thaw, or something burned (while I changed a diaper or whatever). So, I decided, thanks to Renee Ellison at homeschoolhowtos.com, to make dinner my highest priority, after my time with the Lord, and get it done in the morning - so that I have 8 hrs. to get it figured out if necessary. Also, sometimes food would spoil before we could eat it - I overbought, or I cooked a new recipe that was a miserable failure, or everyone but me hated it. All these things added up to money in the garbage! So, I'm planning my menus/grocery lists carefully, using up things that will spoil soon FIRST, and just not experimenting for the time being. So far, so good! I noticed it's been a few days since the chickens have even had any scraps (peelings or anything!), and when I dumped a little bit of food off the boys plates into the trash tonight, I realized it had been a while since I'd done that, too. And for the most part, if the kids don't finish it, it goes into the fridge, and the next time they ask for a snack (or even a meal), I give them their leftovers first. Jeremy has been very faithful to take his lunch to work (or eat what's at the office), so no eating out for him!

Things are Tight Around Here!

So, it's been a LONG time since I've posted. Mostly because we've had a lot of things going on that required a wait time before there was any news. We placed a bid on a property that is still pending. Nothing is certain yet, but if/when we get it, I will have such a testimony to tell! In the meantime, we are trying to hold on to every penny we can, to make sure that we have all funds available to make this purchase, should we get approved. When we found out that this property was available, when we did the calculations, we decided that we would have very little money to spend, if we made our top bid. So, I dug through my pantry, fridge, freezer, and deep freeze, and I decided that we could probably live for a month on what we had in the house, if we were judicious in the way we prepared meals, and if we didn't waste food. A while back I started a small food storage program, so maybe it was for this reason! So, since then, I've been to Aldi once and spent a little over $7, and we went out to eat at Rosa's with some friends after church (our whole family of 5 ate for $10). We also put in an order with our milk co-op (before we knew about the property), but still only spent $10. I feel guilty when I think of all the food that has gotten wasted at our house in the past, not to mention all the fast food trips that we could have lived without. To see just how little we could live on is humbling. When we say a prayer to thank God for our food lately, it has taken on a whole new meaning. I could just be eating a piece of bread, but God has provided so much more than that! He is so faithful!

Dry Cleaning Savings

We do not own many dry clean only clothes; one trip to the cleaners would be more expensive than just going back to the thrift store for more clothes! LOL! This weekend was my sister's wedding, and DEFINITELY the occasion for itty bitty suits and bowties and other things that can't be machine washed. Enter Woolite's DryCleaner's Secret - very much like Dryel, but without the bag to get your clothes all wrinkled. $9.99 will clean 24 pieces of clothing, and unlike even the $1.99 drycleaners, an itty bitty bowtie counts as LESS than 1 piece of clothing! I'm not technologically inclined, but if you can make the below link work, you can use it for a mail-in rebate for $3 off DryCleaner's Secret. I'll let you know if I get my rebate check....

http://cvssavingscentral.com/Media/04_DRY_10052_WooliteDCS/Images/04_Dry_10052_WooliteDCS_rebate.pdf